


No mercy, it's a bit too late

by falloutboiruto



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Angst and Humor, Autism Spectrum, Autistic!Mitsuki, Awkward Dates, Bad Decisions, Closure, F/M, Feminist Themes, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-09 09:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutboiruto/pseuds/falloutboiruto
Summary: In the wake of the breaking news of a certain utterly disgusting excuse for a TV Drama Actor getting arrested for sexual misconduct, Cho Cho(despite protests from Sarada) tries the tried and true "dating as a distraction" tactic to get her mind off things. It would probably be a lot more effective if her date had been physically able to talk about topics other than a) one Boruto Uzumaki or b) snake husbandry.





	No mercy, it's a bit too late

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This fanfic is a bit different from what I usually write in that it deals with the fact that during the Cho Cho/TV Drama production arc, the lead actor Tomaru(an actualfax adult) tried to GROOM Cho Cho. So there will be a discussion of what happened on-screen in that arc, but it's not graphic in any way. If that sounds like something that would trigger you, maybe not read this. I wrote this because the arc in question was really upsetting for me due to personal experiences, but I am not an expert on the subject so please take the fanfic with a grain of salt and not as "advice" in any sort of way.
> 
> Also I'm a bit unsure of how the archive warnings work and if I should use any of them, as there is no actual graphic sexual abuse in this fanfic. If anyone knows if I should use them please tell me and I will!
> 
> also the shipping stuff in this fanfic is mostly just IMPLIED and one-sided and not really central jsyk!!
> 
> beta read by: @reaperduckling  
> title from "fight like a girl" by emilie autumn

Cho Cho was starting to get busy enjoying her day off, hanging around the house while her parents were at work. In between singing karaoke into her hairbrush in front of the mirror and following along to a _NinjaTube_ makeup tutorial, the day was showing a lot of promise. Suddenly, her doorbell rang and when she answered the door she was greeted with Sarada’s lovely face that had a slightly less lovely facial expression on it. Sarada looked _extremely_ upset.

 “Cho Cho, you need to see this,” Sarada said, face hard as stone, carrying a newspaper clipping in a very peculiar way. She was pinching it carefully between two fingers like she was afraid that it would burn her if she held onto it properly. As soon as Sarada stepped into the house and finally revealed which article it was, Cho Cho understood why she’d done that.

Famous TV Drama Actor Accused of Sexually Harassing Underage Girls

“Do you think it’s _Tomaru_? Is that why you’re showing me this?” Cho Cho asked.

Sarada nodded.

“Well, you know, he didn’t _really_ do anything physical to me other than _almost_ kissing me a couple of times. It wasn’t _that_ bad! The worst thing he did was emotionally manipulating me, which isn’t _really_ criminal, right?” Cho Cho laughed without knowing why. It wasn’t particularly funny.

Sarada’s expression made Cho Cho feel like she’d done something deeply wrong. Sarada looked, _honestly,_ heartbroken.

“Sorry, _I shouldn’t_ -“Cho Cho began apologizing frantically, but Sarada interrupted her by hugging her tightly.

“Don’t apologize. Ok?” Sarada choked out. She released Cho Cho from her vice grip and stepped back.

“What he did was _disgusting._ Period. Have you talked to your parents about it? You should also press charges. Maybe it’d help to get that _fucker_ convicted,” Sarada said viciously, surprising Cho Cho by even _swearing_.

Sarada never swore. _Ever_.

“I actually told Mom about it and she did complain to the production company,” Cho Cho said, cringing at the awful, _awful_ memories of the sounds of her Mom desperately yelling on the phone downstairs. Cho Cho hiding in her room, trying to hold pillows to her ears to cancel out the sounds of her Mom crying.

Sarada hugged her again.

“I was _so_ scared _and_ worried about you. If this ever happens again you have to tell me, right? It could be my first assassination gig, and it’d be justified too. I wouldn’t go to jail for _too_ long,” Sarada said, sounding _deadly_ serious.

Cho Cho laughed inappropriately again. It was _almost_ like Sarada was more upset about the whole thing than Cho Cho herself was. However, when she really thought about it, she really _had_ been extremely hurt by the _“whole thing”_. Maybe it was time for another guy to enter her life, to replace the old crusty memories of a disgusting _pedoph-_

“You know! I should ask someone else out on a date to get over Tomaru!” Cho Cho suddenly suggested. It felt wrong to even speak the words, and Sarada's reaction suggested that too.

But Cho Cho pushed through anyway.

“I should ask _Mitsuki_ out on a date! He’s… _a guy_! And he was so nice to me during the whole Tomaru thing! _Maybe_ he could be the one!” Cho Cho said while doing her dreamiest sigh and funniest idol-esque pose.

“Are you completely out of your _mi_ -I mean, uh, I guess Mitsuki is pretty harmless, but how would asking him out _help_ you in any way shape or form? Shouldn’t you see a therapist or something?” Sarada asked incredulously.

“Never mind that, I just know that it might be… _good_!” Cho Cho said, mostly trying to convince _herself_ at this point.

“Okay, well, I guess there’s no harm in it…” Sarada said, obviously trying to school her outrage into something a bit more supportive. Cho Cho, however, was already too busy planning to bother to stop to actually think for even a second if this was a good idea or not.

It couldn’t go _that_ badly, right?

-*-

“A _date_? With you? Uh, I _guess_?” Mitsuki shrugged.

Everything was going according to plan. Sure, Mitsuki didn’t _sound_ very enthusiastic and was in fact already ignoring Cho Cho in order to pay attention to whatever stupid thing Boruto was doing at the moment(imitating a dance from a video game, apparently), but this was going to be great!

-*-

The candlelit so-called _romantic_ dinner date at the new restaurant Cho Cho wanted to try out was going badly, and they hadn’t even started ordering yet.

”Wait, dude, this is a _fancy_ place. The food is probably awesome! You’re _really_ not going to order anything?” Cho Cho asked.

“Nope,” Mitsuki said like that would put an end to the conversation and went back to staring at Cho Cho’s hair. It really did kill the conversation though, so he wasn’t wrong.

"Do you like what I did to my hair? I styled it a little bit different for today, see?" Cho Cho said slightly desperately to change the subject and trying for a different approach this time. She had spent _an hour_ doing a messy-yet-complicated fishtail braid and was _really_ hoping that she’d reap some compliments for her hard work.

Mitsuki furrowed his weird half-brows in confusion and tilted his head at a 90˚ angle.

“N _o_. Uh, I’m actually not _looking_ at your hair at all, I’m just trying to fake making eye-contact with you. But now that you mention it, it does look _very_ nice. Practical for combat, too, since it _would_ keep your hair out of your face.” Mitsuki said.

“You’re supposed to just say that you like it,” Cho Cho snarked.

“Well, that’s more or less what I said, didn’t I? Anyway, I don’t need to eat, hence why I’m not going to order anything. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to make this dinner quick so that we have time to go to the pet store before it closes. I need to buy more frozen mice because I’m starting to run out-“

“ _Frozen mice_? Is _that_ what you’re going to eat instead?” Cho Cho cringed out. This was taking a very strange turn already.

“I see that great minds think alike. Boruto thought the same thing the first time I told him that. Frozen mice, also known as pinkies, are food for snakes and not humans. And I’m definitely a human. My snakes actually get hangry really fast and they’re _no fun_ to have swooshing around in chakra form inside my body when they're _cranky_. They actually have surprisingly colorful and _mean_ vocabularies, so I carry around pinkies at all time in my pocket just in case,” Mitsuki said while fishing something out of his pocket that Cho Cho luckily didn’t get to see up close because a snake _indeed_ thankfully slithered out of Mitsuki’s shirt sleeve and took _whatever_ it was.  

Cho Cho did not even know where to begin with that, so she decided to just completely drop the snake food line of conversation and pick up at the first thing Mitsuki just said.

“What do you mean, ‘ _great minds think alike’_? I’m not sure if I like you comparing me to _Boruto_ of all people," she said.

“You two are actually _way_ more similar than you might think and that’s definitely not an insult. While his brain works in a bit _unconventional_ way, Boruto is the smartest person I know. He _also_ has great hair even though he’s not nearly as creative with it as you are,” Mitsuki said.

“Well, why don’t you go on a date with _him_ then?” Cho Cho said in a tone meant to be teasing but mostly came out as passive-aggressive.

Mitsuki tilted his head the other direction like a shamed dog.

“Why are you asking me this? If you’re getting _jealous_ because I spoke well of another person that you _already_ know that I’m close to, I must have _severely_ misunderstood the meaning of the word ‘ _date’_. What does it _really_ stand for? I thought it was the same thing as to just ‘hang out’," He said while not even bothering to fake making eye contact anymore and fiddling with a napkin on his side of the table.

Cho Cho’s annoyance was at this point starting to fade and was replaced by an even _worse_ feeling: _Pity._

“Uh well… A date is a _romantic_ thing. Like having feelings _other_ than friendship for someone,” Cho Cho said patiently.

“Thanks for explaining. I _think_ I’m pretty much caught up to you now, it does make all the candles on this table make more sense in retrospect. _Well_ …” Mitsuki said more to the napkin than Cho Cho herself, but then lifted his gaze and looked at her (impeccably styled!)hair again.

“Cho Cho, I think that there are a lot of great and _appealing_ things about you. You’re very impulsive and self-centered, yet extremely kind and a great friend. Those are a combination of personality traits I find extremely _interesting_ to observe. Although however great you are I simply don’t see you as a romantic option. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is,” he continued while shrugging.

“Uh, _ok_ ,” Cho Cho said. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be sad about getting rejected or relieved that she did in fact, get rejected by someone who turned out to be _this_ weird (and honestly _kind of_ insensitive to boot). Mitsuki, however, just kept on talking:

“So, are we still friends? I’d like to be. Also, like I said I really need to go to the pet store today-“

“You can just _leave_ if that’s what you want,” Cho Cho, crossing her arms defensively.

“Are you sure?” Mitsuki asked while doing the head tilt again.

“Yes!” Cho Cho said while making intense eye contact with the tablecloth.

“ _Hm._ Ok,” Mitsuki said while quickly collecting his things and then leaving as fast as he evidently could. The bell chime of the restaurant door swinging open as he left the building hit Cho Cho’s ears like a truck hitting imminent roadkill.

 _Yeesh_ , _yikes_ , and some _other_ similar word for _disappointment_.

-*-

As soon as Cho Cho had finished her solo meal and was on her way home, she called Sarada on her cellphone.

“He wouldn’t stop talking about Boruto! And his weird snakes! And I’m pretty sure he fed one with a _dead mouse_ at the table, in front of me! In person!” Cho Cho complained.

Sarada audibly cringed _so hard_ that Cho Cho almost could see it, which was impressive for a phone conversation.

“Yeah, he’s… pretty much always like that whenever he decides to actually do some talking for once. Look, Mitsuki is usually very sweet but his social skills are _somewhat_ limited. It really confused me at first since, _you know_ , he gives off a really smart impression otherwise, but as soon as I understood that I simply had to do some _creative interpretation_ of the things he says we got along a lot better,” Sarada said.

“Like what?” Cho Cho asked.

“Uh, well… _If_ he told you something about liking _observing_ you or someone else he really doesn’t mean it in a creepy way, he just means that he likes to hang out and the observation part is actually just him trying to learn social cues from watching others. It’s _mostly_ harmless,” Sarada explained while sounding like she was reading off a script, probably one that she had memorized from explaining this same exact thing to _several_ confused people before Cho Cho.

“That sort of explains a lot. But I really don’t understand why he kept talking about Boruto the entire time. He’s not _that_ great.” Cho Cho pouted.

There was a long silence.

“Uh, I think there’s a _lot_ more to _that_ than what meets the eye. It’s _entirely_ none of my business, but I’d like to think that when Mitsuki finds love it will be a person who’s _similar_ to him in ways you guys, uh, aren’t. But, uh, that’s enough _gossiping_ about him. Basically, you had _one_ date and he rejected you. It’s not really that big of a deal,” Sarada said.

Cho Cho had already reached her house at this point, so she bid Sarada goodbye and raced up the stairs to collapse on her bed. She then realized that she had forgotten to take her shoes off. _Ugh._

This hadn’t worked at all. Not even in the slightest.

She gingerly got up and walked over her desk and grabbed a piece of paper. She put her pen to the paper and started writing:

A letter to Mr. Tomaru…

-*-

The next day Cho Cho showed up at the mission’s assignment desk at the Ninja Academy early on in hopes of spotting two certain someones. As soon as she heard a loud cracky preteen boy voice screaming his lungs off about _Ninja Bout,_ she knew that the people she wanted to talk to were probably also there as well.

“Sarada! And Mitsuki! And, uh, _Boruto_ …” Cho Cho greeted them with. “Mitsuki, Sarada, I kind have to talk to both of you. But separately. _In private_ ….”

“I’ll go first then,” Mitsuki said, shrugging nonchalantly.

As soon they had walked far enough from the rest of Team 7 to be out of hearing range Mitsuki cut to the chase.

“Are you upset about our _‘date’_ last night? Because when you asked me to leave it sounded like you were doing that thing when you said _one_ thing but meant _another_. I just left out of confusion, honestly,” he said.

“Uh, yeah, about that… I’m not _really_ sad about that. I, uh, actually mostly asked you out to try to get over, uh, that actor guy that was really creepy. Tomaru, if you remember him.”

“Oh yeah, _that_ guy. I didn’t like him,” Mitsuki said.

“By the way, were you trying to interrupt us on purpose back then?” Cho Cho asked.

“ _Yes_ ,” Mitsuki said. “To be honest, I was pretty worried. We all were.”

“ _Yeesh_ … Well, _thanks_ for that,” said Cho Cho while she suddenly remembered Sarada’s words about Mitsuki’s social skills being ‘somewhat limited’. She then quickly added some clarification: “Uh, no sarcasm, I’m being honest. Thank you for looking out for me and helping me with _that_."

“You’re welcome. It’s what friends do, right?”

“Yeah!” Cho Cho smiled. "Ok, that's all that I wanted to talk to you about. Can you tell Sarada to come over here now? She and I have some _unfinished business_ to attend to,”

-*-

Cho Cho and Sarada were standing by the Hokage Rock cliffs, looking out over the village from above. The scenery had probably been even _more_ beautiful if they had done this at sunset or something, but Cho Cho just wanted to get it done as soon as possible so badly that she was willing to skip the theatrics.

Cho Cho cleared her throat and started reading her letter.

“Mr. Tomaru. _You suck._ I _hate_ you, and I _really_ hope you go to jail. _The End_.” She put the letter back in the envelope and gave it to Sarada, who set it aflame with a giant fireball. Together they watched the message crumble into ashes in front of their feet. Cho Cho’s vision of the fire was getting kind of blurry though, and she at first didn’t understand why until Sarada handed her a handkerchief.

She wiped her teary eyes, utterly bulldozing her five layers of _"Casual Glam Makeup"_ that she had put on that morning with a little help from a _NinjaTube_ beauty guru. But maybe it was for the best.

“Do you feel better now?” Sarada asked while putting her arm over Cho Cho's shoulder.

“ _Kind of_ ,” Cho Cho sniffled, leaning into the touch for comfort.

“Well, at least that _cockroach_ is out of your life now. Good riddance.”

Cho Cho felt tears roll down her cheeks even harder at that, completely unable to stop crying. Well, Sarada was right. Good riddance, honestly.

She had gotten her heart broken, but the world hadn’t ended. She had gone on a bad date with a guy who had rejected her, but the world had _still not_ ended.

Maybe this _really_ wasn’t the end of the world, and she had the rest of her life to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! :)


End file.
